In recent times, one after another, some children who were otherwise excellent in their studies have come to me looking for help to see if I can help them rediscover their motivation to study because they are facing the pressure of college entrance exams, midterm exams, or final exams. Rather interestingly, there were some of these kids that I had received before but did not agree with my analysis at the time. When they came back to me six months or a year later, they would readily admit that what I said then did make sense. When I ask them what makes sense, they usually say that my words “children who are bored with school are often strong children who aim too high and cannot be motivated to study” have moved them, but they do not know where to start. For such children, before guiding them on how to find motivation, I often ask them: What are the things in life that you feel motivated to do? Generally speaking, these children tend to have a hobby that they play well, such as basketball, soccer, bodybuilding, or online games, and are little known among their classmates. When I asked them how they got so good at it, they often said they liked it. But when I ask them “when did you like it and did you play it so well from the beginning”, they will also say that they actually had their own rookie days. When I ask them how they persevered when they were rookies, they are a bit incoherent. If I’m not done, I sometimes challenge them to say that they are “playing well because they like it” and ask them if they believe I can turn them from liking it to disliking it in a month. They often hesitated to answer, not knowing what I was selling. If they don’t have any hobbies or can’t answer anymore, I will change the subject: What if there is nothing wrong with a person, but they don’t want to eat? The most straightforward answer for most children is to make something delicious. What if there is no good food? I would next ask. Exercise, or don’t eat. Most children will answer this way. Why does exercise create the need to eat? Exercise uses up energy and requires eating to replenish it. The children are not precise, but they can basically say this in a general sense. If I hear them say this, I often ask them: If being anorexic is like being anorexic, what kind of exercise will make you find motivation to study, like finding an appetite? When I hear doctors ask this question, these children often have a sense of enlightenment. Indeed, these high-achieving children often have a process of over-diligence before they develop anorexia. The goal of learning is too demanding, and the process of improvement is too fast, just like eating too much too fast tends to hurt the food, and it is often easy to become bored with school. In particular, if the doctor asks patiently, he or she will often find that these children often have a period or periods of time when they are very eager to learn and particularly motivated to learn in the first few years when they do not appear to be anorexic. Ask how this happened and how to make such a trigger happen again, and treatment strategies will naturally emerge. The most important point in these treatment strategies is to protect the desire to learn and to progress gradually, not to be greedy for more and faster. But parents and children, again, are most likely to make this mistake. They often feel that we are bored with school these days, other children have learned a lot of things, so they must make up for it, or still be left behind. Therefore, often accidentally eat hurt again. Repeatedly several times, the child’s motivation to learn will be seriously set back, just like the stomach fallen sick, the mobilization of the more difficult. Going back to the children’s hobbies, let’s take another side of the story to illustrate the reasons for boredom. Generally, the higher the grade level, the more parents and teachers limit the amount of time children can spend on their hobbies in order to ensure learning outcomes. But what is interesting and strange is that the more parents restrict, the stronger the hobby and the better the child’s performance? One child (who was particularly thoughtful) summed it up particularly well when he said that there were two reasons why he could last in his hobby: one was that he could see a little change in himself and he had a sense of control and competence; the other was that he was emotionally invested in his hobby. I said, “Another one is that you don’t expect too much from yourself in the hobby. He agreed. Reasonable expectations, clear motivation, and feedback on every step forward to give yourself a sense of control are, in my opinion, the three essentials for successful hobby development. It doesn’t take long for a child to start hating a hobby if he also places too many expectations on it. This is mostly true of the aversions of high-achieving students. In fact, to put it a little deeper. Our so-called likes, so-called hobbies, so-called expertise, is always the result of a long immersion in a certain area. The so-called immersion, the focus is on slow and long, patience. This is true of hobbies and learning. Learn a long time, the interest will slowly come. The interest is there, the grades will slowly get better. The results are good, and we often think we like to learn, or is a piece of learning material. Therefore, I often say that people are a function of time. Just like people eat more rice, will grow taller and fatter. In this regard, Mr. Cai Zhizhong said “life is the calculus of time”, expressed more exquisite and subtle, I admire.